The new County Chairman of Wexford Sinn Féin has called for a no vote to the so-called “Fiscal Compact” Treaty in the upcoming referendum – (formally, the intergovernmental Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union). Oisin O’Connell, a farmer and recent economics graduate from Foulkesmills, was elected the new Chairperson of Sinn Féin in County Wexford, at a Comhairle Ceantar meeting in Enniscorthy last Tuesday night. Mr O’Connell said his first duty would be to help lead the County Wexford campaign of opposition to what he terms ‘the Permanent Austerity Treaty’.

The Permanent Austerity Treaty is a cookbook; and your jobs, your businesses, and your livelihoods are what’s on the menu. This is economic cannibalism on a national scale. It formalises us as a generational debt-servicing machine. Solely to protect the financial fictions of the European monetary and banking system. To bailout the same European system for the problems it caused by a ‘one-size-fits-Germany’ monetary union.

Millions for water meters, when the same money could fix the pipes that leak most of the water. Septic Tank schemes to squeeze rural dwellers who already pay for their own infrastructure. Household charges when people already pay whopping charges to build their houses. More of this on the way. Where is it going? What is it for? That giant sucking sound is the economic lifeblood being drained from this country in the form of emigration of surplus people, credit contraction, job and demand destruction. Our collective life is being being transformed into a giant toll-booth to save and serve a continental plutonomy. To quote the poem: ‘Will German, French or Dutch inscribe the epitaph of Emmet, When we’ve sold enough of Ireland, to be but strangers in it?’

Recently, even leading pro-government economists like Colm McCarthy have derided the economics of this treaty. It has been well publicised that the introduction of the 0.5% structural deficit rule will cost the state an extra €6 billion. Even if the Fine Gael/Labour government reaches its target of a 3% deficit by 2015, we will still have to remove a further €6 billion from our economy at that point. That and other measures will fuel an economic implosion which this state will struggle to ever escape.

Sinn Féin wants people to educate themselves on this treaty. The full text is only eleven pages long and available to read free online – with explanations – at www.AusterityTreaty.com. To inform the public of the dangers posed, Wexford Sinn Féin, is launching the Austerity Treaty Road-show. In the coming weeks we will visit communities across the county campaigning for a no vote to the Permanent Austerity Treaty. If you wish to help the campaign against the Austerity Treaty in your area, text join to 086-2397192